Job Seeking During COVID Time, Part 2
With a little help from Friends

So in this continuation of my process, I'm going to share some ideas that I hope will be helpful for all of you also thinking of making a change, "in transition" or out looking.

For this piece, I'm going to blatantly steal from a great presentation I saw through Career Pro here in NC. I've never even met John O'Connor in person (how 2020!) but I feel like he's in my corner and he hosts weekly zoom calls with professionals who he's known throughout his career.

About a month ago one of the speakers was a bright young woman, Rachael Newberry, who works for RIot as a Program Manager. RIot is an accelerator for IoT (translation - that means Internet of Things) companies here in the RTP area.

Am I a fit for IoT companies? Are you? That's one of the first things on my list because she was downright inspiring in her positivity and several of her comments have stuck with me since her talk. I was so impressed with the comments that I took screenshots during her talk. Don't worry - I've got her permission to post them on this VERY POPULAR blog installation.

Here are four of her points that I'm going to keep in the back of my mind as I look for my next job. I think they could be helpful for you too.

#1: First, this

For me, the first and last points are most applicable and encouraging.


#2: Second, I was encouraged by the fact that she was on board with the fundamental business truths listed here. These are the ones that I've built my 20+ year career upon. Yep - I agree with all of these.

#3: Third, I love that she wasn't preaching that Tech is the Answer to All of the World's Problems. Yes, tech is amazing and data and science will help us solve this COVID thing and come up with a vaccine. But business and commerce is still between people.


#4 and last - is Rachael's slide looking at the new COVID business truths that we all need to accept and incorporate into how we work:

I love that these are common sense and this gets me excited to be part of Big Solutions. With empathy and adaptability. Sure I'm open to doing things in new ways and I learned a lot in my last job at SVC (shameless personal plug for my learning capabilities), but at the end of the day, let's work together to solve problems for customers. I can't help that my impact investing days make me believe that business can solve societal and environmental problems while concurrently becoming million dollar economic engines.

I'm tweaking my resume (thanks John), building this website (thanks Refinery Project Management) and blog and am beginning to network like mad (thanks to all of you who know who you are). Virtually. Over distanced coffees. With zoom (sign up for a 30 minutes conversation at jillszoom.com) and telephone calls.


I'm ready to solve some problems and grow a company that makes me give a damn. Are you? Let's do this! Carpe diem. I think we'll all get to where we're going faster with the help of our friends.